Pyle of List

Oh, you didn’t know? Well, March Madness indeed starts this week. The only problem with that? It starts in the middle of the week during normal business hours. Well, we here at Pyle of List feel the plight of the working man. Not in a Stalin kind of way, but in a ‘who wouldn’t rather watch sports?’ kind of way. So we’re offering up some great excuses to get you out of work and into bars to watch the opening games of the tourney. Enjoy!

Who wants kids anyways?

1. Fake Vasectomy

This is a one-time only excuse, but a darn good one because it guarantees you at least 48 hours off and makes your boss wince and cross his legs. Some suckers in Oregon are actually getting the procedure done to get the time off but you, the average blog reader, is smarter than that. Just don’t have any kids anytime soon.

Born again…again.

2. Made Up Religious Holiday

This one is two step process. Step 1: make up a religion. I’m a big fan of The New Faith Church. Vague enough that no one can call you out on it, but it has plenty of religious buzzwords to make it sound legit. Step 2: Uh, oh! Your new found belief in whatever happens to have their big holiday this week! So, unfortunately, you won’t be able to come in and pretend to work on a spreadsheet for 6 hours because you’ve got to fast/pray/some other religious BS.

Hey, someone, somewhere died, right?

3. “Funeral”

I mean come on.  What is your boss going to say about you needing to go to Cousin Ray Ray’s homegoing?  There’s a couple of things that you’ll need to do though.  1. Make sure you don’t use a REAL family member that your boss has a chance of meeting or who will really pass away in the near future (a person dying twice is not possible)  2.  Please have your sketchy buddy that’s good with photoshop to design and print a funeral program in case you need proof of this sad sad sad event.

‘Feeling Crusty’ would also be acceptable

4. Jury Duty

What’s your boss going to say?  It is against the law to discriminate/punish/demote someone for jury duty.  You might even get paid and not have to use sick days.  This excuse can work beautifully, unless you actually have jury duty this week…like me.  Now I have to come up with an excuse to get out of jury duty. That’s not as easy.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

5. House Caught Fire

This sort of excuse takes some commitment.  You can’t just come back to work on Monday and act like nothing ever happened.  You’ll probably have to dress like a hobo for a bit because, well, all your clothes burned up too.  You might be able to parlay this kind of excuse into a full week off from work.  That should be good for the sweet 16 and the elite 8 as well.  You’re welcome.

“I can’t talk about it right now *sniff*”

6. “Family Emergency”

Here’s the thing…if you call in with the “family emergency” and you seem ambiguous and they can’t nail down whats going on…your golden.  They’ll just think the wife got arrested or that your parents are in the hospital with some sort of unspeakable cancer.    

Pictured: Newspaper columnists in 2010

7. Get laid off 7 months before the tourney during an economic downturn

Much like the wonderful Hooked on Phonics…It worked for me. (ed. note: Pyle of List is not responsible for forclosers or divorces resulting from the advice of our bum of a blogger)

No one has ever cheered for balls so much in the history of the world.

8. Hit the lottery

This is interesting because you would consider not ever coming to work again anyway.  So if your boss looks at you funny for asking for those days off, open your briefcase filled with bundled Jacksons in front of him and tell him to kiss your ass… You didn’t need his permission any damn way.  Just sucks that the likelyhood of you winning the lottery is worse than Morehead State’s chances of winning it all.

“Too…much…green…beer…”

9. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…”

This one needs to be said in a bit of a raspy voice while you squint a little bit. It wouldn’t hurt if you start shaking while you said it. I mean, let’s face it, no one wants to mess with the Hulk and your boss can’t prove that you’re NOT the Hulk so you’re pretty much set for life.

“F*ck you, I’m Irish!”

10. St Patrick’s Day related incarceration

This reminds me that Notre Dame is in the NIT this year.. which is pretty much analogous to being incarcerated.  The unfortunate part of this excuse is that you’ll likely be able to watch the whole tournament without ever having to ask for days off again.

Pyle of List is not responsible for loss of employment resulting from the use of these excuses. Leave some of your tried and true methods, or crazy-enough-to-work ideas in the comments!